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British anthropologist jeremy keenan on the dark sahara americas56in Africa

British Anthropologist Jeremy Keenan on “The Dark Sahara: America’s56in Africa”
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As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues her seven-nation tour of Africa, we hear from British anthropologist Jeremy Keenan. He traces AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa, to a 2003 kidnapping of European tourists. The hostage taking was widely blamed on Islamic militants thought to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, but Keenan argues that the Bush administration and the Algerian government were the ones responsible.

Guest:

Jeremy Keenan, Professor of social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. His latest book is The Dark Sahara: America’s56in Africa. Its sequel, The Dying Sahara, will be released next year.

AMY GOODMAN: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has emphasized that her seven-country tour of Africa is intended to promote democracy, fight corruption, and boost US investments in African trade and agriculture.

We turn now to another issue that’s widely expected to be discussed on every stop: AFRICOM, the US military command in Africa, which has been publicly opposed by every country on the continent except Liberia.

Now Secretary Clinton will not be visiting the countries in and around the oil- and gas-rich Sahara desert—Mali, Niger, Chad, Algeria and Mauritania. But a new book by British anthropologist Jeremy Keenan argues this area is crucial to understanding the birth of AFRICOM and the Bush administration’s expansion of the global56into Africa.

Keenan is a professor of social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and has spent over four decades working in and writing about this region. He traces AFRICOM and the US military concern over al-Qaeda’s presence in Africa back to the February 2003 kidnapping of thirty-two European tourists in Algeria’s Sahara desert. The hostage taking was widely blamed on Islamic militants thought to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, but Professor Keenan argues that the Bush administration and the Algerian government were the ones to blame.

His latest book is called The Dark Sahara: America’s56in Africa. Its sequel is called The Dying Sahara, will be released next year.

Anjali Kamat and I spoke with Professor Keenan last week and asked him to lay out the story.     

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Open letter to professor gil troy

By John Baglow

(source: Dawg’s Blawg)

Dear Professor Troy:

You have by now written two articles naming me personally, and have appeared before the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism to sing the same tune (with reference to me, at least by name, mercifully absent): the "new anti-Semitism," as opposed to the more recognizable Jew-hatred, is directed towards the state of Israel and its policies.

Rather than having the "courage of [your] convictions," you have defined me, a critic of the CPCCA, as an anti-Semite through innuendo and juxtaposition. (Or is that "a new anti-Semite?") You then have the chutzpah to wonder aloud why it is that critics of Israel such as I are concerned about a parliamentary "inquiry" that has all the earmarks of a witch-hunt.

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